Paul Wong
60 Unit: Bruise. Single channel video performance (1976).
in ten sity. Single channel edit of the live video performance (1978).
Paul Wong, 60 Unit: Bruise. Still of the single channel video performance (1976). Courtesy of Video Out Vancouver.
Born November 1954 in Prince Rupert, British Columbia. Lives and works in Vancouver, B.C. Paul Wong is a Canadian multimedia artist, pioneer video artist, curator, and organizer of public interventions since the mid-1970s. With a career spanning four decades he has been instrumental in Canadian contemporary art and the larger art ecology. Wong’s work is best known for the engagement with issues of race, heritage, sex, and death including making art for site-specific spaces and screens of all sizes. His work spans from conceptual performances to narratives, video, photography, installation, and performance with Chinese-Canadian cultural perspectives.
The VENICE INTERNATIONAL PERFORMANCE ART WEEK 2014 shows two of Wong's early works:
- 60 Unit: Bruise (1976), single channel video performance. Part performance, part document, Paul Wong friend Kenneth Fletcher withdraws sixty units of blood from his own arm, and then carefully injects them all via syringe into Wong’s naked shoulder. A purple bruise spreads slowly over Paul Wong skin.
- in ten sity (1978), single channel edit of the live video performance. Wong climbs into an 8’ by 8’ padded cube space with a video camera and for 25 minutes, bounces against and off the walls to the lyrics of The Avengers, Patti Smith and The Sex Pistols as a statement of energy, existence and tolerance.
Paul Wong, In.ten.sity. (1978) Exhibition view. Venice International Performance Art Week 2014. Photograph by Samanta Cinquini.
Courtesy of the artist and Video Out Vancouver.